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Summer ’09, Vol. 2

I knew that I wanted to take a special trip somewhere for our 6th anniversary, so we saved up for a year and then started searching for where to go. We decided to go to Barbados, and it might just be the best joint decision we’ve ever made (aside from the I Do’s of course).

One Word: Paradise.

Our hotel was by no means fancy but it was right on the beach with a pool, hot tub, and most importantly air conditioning. I’ve never seen water like there before. It was so beautiful. We were supposed to have bad weather everyday. So when we got there and the sun was out, we immediately jumped in the water and took all our pictures, thinking that at least we would have one day of sunshine. (After a trip to Jamaica with rain daily, we have learned our lesson.) But every day when we woke up, the sun was still shining, the sky was blue, and we did a little jump for joy that we had another day.** There were a few clouds that moved near us at times, but all in all we literally had 2 minutes of rain the entire week. We were swimming at the time, and didn’t even get out of the water.

We took two tours, a driving tour and boat tour. Barbados is such a small island that we were able to drive the entire perimeter in about 5 hours. We saw the mountains, the huge rock formations on the Atlantic coast, a cave in the side of a mountain that opened to the sea, and monkeys climbing in the trees while we ate lunch.

Inside Animal Flower Cave

On the boat tour we did some snorkeling over a shipwreck (triggering every Jaws nightmare I’ve ever had), swam on the west coast of the island where the water is so calm that there are no waves, and snorkeled with the sea turtles.

The remaining days were spent reading, swimming, and laying by the ocean. We brought our own snorkels and went out daily. We found a sea turtle swimming about 15 feet in front of the hotel so we swam along with it (at a safe distance) for hours. We named him Torrance and were miraculously able to find and swim with him everyday. At night we would sit in the beach-side restaurant and play cards, or go to the local fish market for dinner. Also of note: Bajans seems to have a thing for the Reba show, as it was on nightly on 3 of our 8 TV channels.

Torrance, the turtle in front of our hotel.

But mostly, we just did a lot of this:

Bliss.

and this:

View from our beach chairs.

I loved every second of the trip, and want to go back so badly. Wanting to “go” is not new for me, but wanting to go back is. Generally we say that we’ll only go somewhere once, because there’s so much of the world to see. As soon as we got home I was looking at our flights for our “next” (HAHA) trip back to Barbados. I’m hooked ya’ll. If you go, you will be too.

(This blog post was not sponsored by the Barbados Department of Tourism, despite all evidence to the contrary.)

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**Being so excited to wake up each morning and see the sun made me think about how I don’t EVER do that at home. I am never excited to wake up and start the day, or see if the sun is shining. And I should be. I should be thankful everyday to be alive, to the see the sun (or clouds or most likely the snow). I hope that I can learn to be as appreciative here in Boston as I was in Barbados.